Some of us public school types are lucky not to have any accent at all, 225!
You and me both, old chap (although my friends always thought I was posh, while my teacher accused me of sounding “estuary”, so I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder).
Just to get back on topic (ish), that black policewoman out of Without a Trace turns out to be English. To my uneducated ears, she seemed to do a pretty passable “American”.
“Without a Trace” is odd, they’ve cast 3 out of the 5 leads with foreigners, that’s not something I would have expected.
Anthony Lapaglia - Australian
Poppy Montgomery - Australian
Marianne Jean-Baptiste - British
As for Jamie Bamber in “Battlestar Galactica”, I didn’t recognise him as Archie from “Hornblower”.
Perhaps they’re just cheaper than their home-grown competition?
In reverse, British actors doing an “American” accent often seem to choose either Brooklyn Italian or Texas Cowboy, both copied from bad movies with American actors doing the same accents badly.
Jamie Bamber’s father is American and he grew up in France, so I question if his British accent is his only “native” one.
Naveen Andrews’ “real” voice is probably the Anglo-Indian one he used in “Bride and Prejudice”.
I think someone commented above, and I can also state from commentaries both on the DVDs of that movie and the television series “Lost”, that his accent is very, er, working-class, not posh at all. It sounded almost like a put-on “chav” accent from comedy sketches to my ignorant American ears. He was raised in South London.
Of course; I’ve seen his name before I don’t know where I got “Griffith” from.
Stupid “last name isn’t really their last name” people …
I’m curious–what do you think about John Hillerman’s (Higgins, Magnum, PI) British accent? I confess, I never knew he was a native born Texan until just a couple years ago! I actually thought he was a Brit who did a great Texas accent!
Good point. I do think that his British accent is his “default,” if not his true or only “native” accent. Whatever it is, he sure ain’t speakin’ Amurican.
If you’ve only ever heard his Battlestar Galactica American accent, you should listen to him talking in some of the video blogs posted on SciFi’s website, such as this funny one (forewarning: Flash, language NSFW).
I vividly remember a radio sketch on BBC World Service marking the 50th anniversary of Glenn Miller’s disappearance. Glenn (a midwesterner, who frequently spoke on recordings) and his drummer Ray McKinley (a Texan, who often sang on them) were voiced by actors who sounded like Bogart and George Raft respectively. And Miller is absolutely beloved in Britain. :rolleyes:
Undoubtedly. The plain truth woiuld appear to be that if you want to sound authentic you aim at an accent that combines two almost opposite qualities: salience and uncommon-ness. Mery Streep is another, in my opinion, very talented actress (and singer), whose English accent, in French Lieut’s Woman was nauseating. Once again, a la Being Julia, with regard to conveying English womanhood, there seems to be an unwritten rule that the woman must be made as blithe and as ethereal as possible. Is this done to distract from the infuriating accent, or does Hollywood seek to perpetuate mythical stereotypes by converging on certain storylines and screenplays?
Two of the three male leads in L.A. Confidential (already mentioned) were Australian - Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe.
LaPaglia, by the way, did an excellent Brooklyn Italian in the Arthur Miller play A View from the Bridge 1998. He gave one of the best individual performances I’ve seen on Broadway and won a Tony for the role.
Dominic West and Idris Elba doing American accents in The Wire. I knew Dominic West wasn’t American but had no idea about Idris Elba until I saw the British miniseries, Ultraviolet.
Ok, I’ll take the bait. To whom do you refer?
The first time I saw Bridget Jones, it seemed to me that Zellwegger was doing a pretty good job. On subsequent viewings, I’ve noticed the “working too hard” bit.
I would say that about 80 percent of Americans pronounce it the “wrong” way, so if you’re looking for realism …
I agree with this evaluation. Although I love Hugh Laurie, I can’t watch House because, even though he gets the pronunciation perfect, he talks like he’s always working on a bowel movement.
I remember this, too. If I recall, part of what made him sound wrong was the British word choice in the script.
Excellent American accent. Absolutely convincing to me.
I don’t run into a lot of Scots in real life, but I did notice that on television and the movies, there weren’t any Scots speaking in accents like Scotty’s.
When I was supply teaching in South-east London, I was told by my class that I “talked posh”. When I laughed and asked they why they thought so (I am english-speaking white South African), they replied “because you finish all your words.”
Eye of the beholder indeed… 
Grim
Bloom’s character is from Portland, so he’d damn well better say it right.
Well, to be fair, a black guy can also play a Wrongheaded Commanding Officer (“You’re off the case McGarnigle! If I hear about you poking around that Haunted Bus Stop one more time, I’ll have your badge!”), or the Magical African-American Friend (the wise, soulful, saintly black person, often with literal magic powers, who spends all their time teaching their uptight white friend how to live, laugh, and love).
Having read many previous threads on the topic of actors and accents, I have come to a conclusion.
The only reliable measure of an actor’s ability to imitate an accent results from a blind test. Allow a selection of “native” speakers to listen to a sampling of the actor’s accented speech a) without identifying the actor, b) without identifying the actor’s nationality/ethnicity, and c) without making the audience aware that the accent is not authentic. Survey the audience with questions designed to elicit a critique of the actor’s accent (as one of many elements, perhaps) – again, without hinting that the accent is not authentic. Gauge how many respondents gave some kind of indication that the accent was “wrong” or “off” or “not from around here.” Tabulate your results as a percentage.
Why go to all of this trouble? Because accents are so very subjective, and they are also (much of the time) only registered subconsciously. I think that if you are aware ahead of time that an actor’s accent is “phony”, you’ll be a lot more critical of it. Time and time again I have seen the same actor’s attempt at an accent greeted with acclaim and jeers by native speakers. A successful accent, IMHO, is not one that you remark upon, it’s one that you DON’T remark upon.
To illustrate my point.
- In preparing for Bridget Jones’ Diary, Renee Zellweger lived in London and worked incognito as a shopgirl. Nobody caught on that she wasn’t a local.
- Brad Dourif kept up his English accent throughout the shooting of Lord of the Rings. As soon as his final scene was in the can, he slipped out of character and began speaking with his normal voice. Various cast and crew members (among whom there were plenty of Brits) asked him what the deal was with the really poorly imitated American accent.
Now THAT’s success.